PCGS forum deletes member accounts

#3 applies ONLY to public figures. With that comes a higher standard.

They did say the deletions were a mechanical error. They didn't say the bans were. Implication was that the sentence had been served.


It remains to be seen whether the, um, participants, resume posting...

 

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They have gone full out insane now. Posts commenting about changes in their grading standards are now prohibited there. They maintain that there has been no change in their grading standards which is total BS.

 

If an objective experienced collector who constantly submits/compares grading between the 2 premier TPG, has been current in their efforts, I believe they'll find similar efforts from the competitor.

Results at times are incomprehensible.

JMHO

 

No it isn’t BS, I’ve explained it 1,000x on this forum.

 

Then explain how they do it without being exposed? I’m serious, if they inform their grading staff in any written form, a copy of one of those internal memos would have leaked by now.

Tell me how they effect the tightening and loosening of standards and keeping it a secret.

The truth is that they don’t change their standards and the perceived inconsistency is a result of expanded market grading principles (eg roll friction & toning) and the inherent subjectivity in grading.

 

You can be sure all employees sign confidentiality agreements, requiring them to keep their mouths zipped shut on what they are told to do; but as we have seen sometimes those big bad confidentiality agreements get ignored without terrible things happening. All they have to have is the finalizer on the same page with the business manager.

 

NGC was the one that accused PCGS in early 2017 and it backfired on them. It read like they were arguing for population control and ended up exacerbating the losing their best US coins to PCGS holders problem by PCGS responding running a cross over special.

A lot of people found it to be an intellectually dishonest accusation by focusing on population reports other it seemed desperate to have to try and stoop that low grasping at straws.

It was rebuffed from multiple sources including third parties

 

The problem with these theories though is PCGS is publicly traded under CLCT. Blatant market manipulation would get the attention of the SEC and there are laws that protect whitleblowers.

That said I do believe they are tighter now than before, however there is a MASSIVE difference between saying we need to watch out for xyz and be more conservative in these areas and telling people to undergrade coins to be tighter.

I don't believe there is some undergrading conspiracy or that they were told to knock everything down a grade ect, but I do think there are areas where they reassessed how they view some areas which is perfectly fine and what everyone should be doing with their grading. The idea that we should be grading the same today as we did in the 1970s is just as silly as when the old timers in the 1970s where complaining that people weren't grading like it was the 1930s anymore.

 

Hmmm. I received an email this morning from what I regard as an honest dealer. He said he had suspended sending coins to PCGS for the time being because of what he terms an overcorrection in grading standards leading to unfairly low grades.

 

The net effect in any case is that any one coin's grade will/can/does go up and down as time passes.

 

Many do believe that grading is tight right now myself included and no doubt many are holding back submissions at the moment. I just don't think that it's some major shift like some imply or some corporate decision to squeeze grades.

Reassessing something and a major overhaul are very different things which is what I believe the point being made it.

 

It’s a cycle. PCGS starts getting a reputation for loose standards, then PCGS tightens their standards to maintain the reputation of being stricter than NGC, and then loosening their standards to keep the dealers happy with higher grades. Denying that this cycle exsists is pure ignorance.

This blindly assuming the TPGs are always correct is getting pretty old, and it has been demonstrated that for classic US coins it is a very stupid thing to do. Why is it so hard for you to accept that they get grades wrong from time to time? This market grading crap is just a pitiable excuse to defend a huge company who cares about nothing except making money.

And if you are so convinced that their standards are consistent, then why is the line between “straight” and “details” always moving all over the place? Subjectivity is a stupid cop-out answer. There is nothing subjective about one coin with a clear and harsh cleaning getting a straight grade and another with an old, light cleaning getting a details grade. (If you want examples, they are easy to find.) Or better yet, the same coin getting a straight grade on one submission and a details grade on another submission. That is a pure lack of a consistent standard, plain and simple.

 

Forget it. Not worth arguing now that the "expert savant" has thrown in more complete nonsense

All I will say is that if Type was right, why can't he time his submissions for what he wants to sell right? Why so many posts crying his coin is undergraded

 

Out of morbid curiosity: If the ED WOODES grading company ( fictious of course) slabs started realizing significantly higher hammer prices for closely similar coins from Avg. knowledge level " Buyers /Investors " , would the owners/dealers send their coins to EWGC ( fictious) for greatest profits or to "Old traditional favorite" because of their strict standards ? Follow the money or the standards?

 

There is no cycle, this is just more internet conspiracy theory from guys like you who feel slighted and financially damaged by PCGS's grading practices. Tell me genius, how would PCGS be able to offer a grade guarantee if they kept moving the goal posts with respect to their grading practices? It would seem to me that doing so would cause them a very serious legal problem.

I don't always agree with the grades assigned by the TPGs, and when I don't, I resubmit the coins for grading again, and often obtain a better grade. What I don't do is automatically assume that the TPG grade is WRONG simply because it differs from my grade. That is what you do!

And it looks like we are making progress. So now your angst is that you are the little guy fighting against the big bad capitalist company. The TPGs don't hide the fact that they market grade coins and why would they be in business if they can't make a profit? Btw, what is the breakdown in revenue for PCGS. Specifically, what % of their revenue comes from resubmissions?

Do you actually think that you have proven that this "line" you refer to actually moves? They grade thousands upon thousands of coins and you cherrypick the ones that you disagree with and proceed to make a mountain out of a mole hill. In your own words, you said they get the grade correct about 95% of the time. Blaming the rest on subjectivity and mistakes seems pretty reasonable to me.

Furthermore, the entire point of the PCGS Secure service was to use computers to digitally map coins so that if the same coin is submitted a second time that they can improve their consistency. Why would a company institute such a measure if their standard business model is to change their grading standards cyclically?

 

You're terrible....

 

Then I guess the dozens of dealers I have talked with who have sent in many times more coins than both of us combined were just imagining things with the patterns of their grading results. Same thing with dozens of colletors observing the grades of coins in the latest holders. I guess every single one has an overactive imagination.

PCGS’s grading has actually netted me much more than what I have lost, so financial damages are not the reason for my complaints. And a lot of those were because of subjectivity or because I missed something. The 1803 half is the ONLY coin I sent in to PCGS where I felt slighted. Does that fit into your agenda?

Easy. Just pretend that the grade is right unless it is glaringly wrong (major missed damage, etc.). They are resubmitted in the holders, so it is easy to see the previous grade.

That 95% figure applies to the whole gamut: early US, Morgans, moderns, late classic US, etc. Some of these goups have standards which are more-strictly defined and adhered to. When you isolate early US, that percentage becomes much lower, probably closer to 75%. Most of that 25% is because I draw a much stricter line for acceptible cleaning and environmental damage levels. I don’t see many where I completely disagree with the number assigned, and more often then not (on Facebook) I am defending the number assigned from those who don’t understand why the coin looks the way it does.

I will say that much of the 57th St Hoard was overgraded by NGC. That is one of the major exceptions to what I said above.

Maybe because they did not trust themselves to assign the same grade each time?

 

And if it is glaringly wrong then declare it a "mechanical error"